U.S. President Donald Trump said he is sending special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, which the Kremlin confirmed, as momentum builds to end the war in Ukraine. Kyiv has now tentatively agreed to an updated and refined peace plan after talks with the U.S. to address its concerns about Trump's original draft.
What To Know
- Trump said Russia is "making concessions" and that he now has "no deadline" for the process after originally saying Ukraine had until Thanksgiving to decide. He said the sides are making good progress, but it is complicated, and the talks are ongoing. A deal is "very close," he said.
- A leaked call from October showed Witkoff coaching top Kremlin officials on how to pitch Trump a Russian plan for ending the Ukraine war. Trump dismissed concerns about Witkoff being pro-Russian or what was said on the call, saying his envoy was just using the standard tools of a dealmaker in a negotiation. Russia criticized the leak.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the "principles" in the new version of the Trump peace plan "can be developed into deeper agreements" and that Kyiv is reading to move forward with it. There are still details to be confirmed, with the most sensitive of those, particularly around territory, to be decided by Trump and Zelensky.
- Zelensky could head to Washington in the coming days to meet with Trump, top Kyiv security official Rustem Umerov said. But Trump said "we should get a deal done first" before Zelensky makes a trip to the White House.
- U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is expected in Kyiv later this week to continue peace negotiations. Driscoll had held talks with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday, after the U.S.-Ukraine negotiations in Geneva altered the original Trump draft plan.
- European leaders work on a plan to put boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a post-war security guarantee against further Russian invasion, despite staunch Kremlin opposition to such a proposal. They are also still weighing if and how they can use frozen Russian assets in Europe to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Stay with Newsweek for live coverage of the moves to bring peace to Ukraine.
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